Our Friends

Based in Hawarden, with a general store and café in Notting Hill, Pedlars offers a curated, considered and beautifully designed range of Vintage and gifts. Interested in products with stories to tell, with patina, history and a good dose of warmth and fun, Pedlars Vintage Marketplace sees the brand working with a network of dealers to create fresh daily parcels of best-quality vintage items for the home and garden. Follow @pedlarsvintage on Instagram to see the latest additions, from knock-out furniture to cool kit for your kitchen.

Hawarden Estate Farm Shop is an award-winning farm shop set in 20 acres of farmed land. Its expert team grows, sources and sells the best food Britain has to offer, with much of the produce coming from within a 30 mile radius or the farm itself, including this year’s bumper crop of asparagus. Its multi-award winning butchery team selects the best quality, locally reared meat, and a deli and café serves the best coffee and food around. From mid-May onwards you can pick your own strawberries, and all year round you can entertain your children with pigs and chickens, a play fort, and a nature trail.

Charlie and Caroline’s pub is about 20 minutes’ walk through the park from the festival site. The Glynne Arms is a fully restored 200 year old coaching inn at the heart of Hawarden village. It featured in The Good Food Guide 2018 and Best 30 Pubs In Wales. Dogs are positively encouraged.

In October, festival co-founders Charlie and Caroline will be launching a new holiday venture in The Highlands. Glen Dye Cabins and Cottages will offer two perfect holiday homes, two amazing cabins, a 1955 Airstream and a series of outdoor showers and wood-fired hot tubs in the extraordinary woods of Glen Dye to the west of Aberdeen.

Caught by the River is an arts/nature/culture clash, posting daily at caughtbytheriver.net. It began as an idea, a vision and a daydream shared between friends one languid bankside spring afternoon. It was conceived as an online meeting place for pursuits of a distinctly non-digital variety: walking, fishing, looking, thinking. Birdsong and beer. Adventure and poetry. Life’s small pleasures, in all their many flavours. It was – and still is – about stepping out of daily routines to re-engage with nature. Finding new rhythms. Being.

Collectively each Caught by the River event, essay, release or publication sees disparate strands of creativity coming together in perfect symbiotic harmony. Together they hopefully form a collective whole that represents an outlook on a world full of endless discovery, innovation, poetry…but mainly just doing things for the sheer joy-giving hell of it. The Caught by the River stage returns to The Good Life Experience this year: their third at the festival.

Visit Wales is the Welsh Government’s tourism team and its role is to support the Welsh tourism industry, improve tourism in Wales and provide the appropriate strategic framework within which private enterprise can achieve sustainable growth and success, so improving the social and economic well being of Wales. Tourism is big business in Wales, Deloitte’s 2013 study sets Tourism’s total overall contribution to the Welsh economy at £8.7 billion and the industry supports nearly 15% of jobs in Wales.

Michael Allpress (yes, there’s a guy) was inspired to establish Allpress Espresso after witnessing the specialty coffee revival in Seattle during the late ‘80s. Early on, Allpress' obsession with flavour saw a switch from being New Zealand’s first coffee cart, to roasting coffee in the back of a garage and supplying it to cafés around Auckland City. They've come a long way since 1986 and today work with over 1000 independent cafes around the world.

Early on Allpress identified that the best tasting coffee is not all science nor is it all craft. It’s the combination of both. So they match skilled artisans around the world, with innovative technology. Flavour is what drives each and every Allpress decision - from the coffee machines they use, to the hours spent in the cupping room. Everything is about ensuring consistency in your cup, right down to the way they roast. Hot Air Roasting enables the unique character of every bean to shine through and dissipates the smoky burnt taste that traditional drum roasting causes. Today Allpress roasts exclusively using the Allpress Hot Air Roast Method and they've even gone one step further - innovating and building our Hot Air Roasters from the ground up, designed for flavour first.

The Idler is a literary and philosophical magazine devoted to its ethos of 'idling'. Founded in 1993 by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the publication's intention is to return dignity to the art of loafing, to make idling into something to aspire towards rather than reject. It combines the aesthetics of 1990s slacker culture and pre-industrial revolution idealism. The title comes from a series of essays by Samuel Johnson, published in 1758–59. 2010 saw the opening of the Idler’s educational offshoot; The Idler Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment, offering online and real-world courses in the classical liberal arts and practical skills. Here you can learn about philosophy, astronomy, calligraphy, music, business skills, English grammar, ukuleles, public speaking, singing, drawing, self-defence and other subjects.

Established in 1996 and initially operating from a 3500 sq.ft. facility on the Deeside Industrial Park in North Wales with a range of sign making equipment and a dedicated passionate team, Signworld quickly earned its reputation for producing a wide range of quality signage to a range of retail & industrial clientele spread across the north west of England, Since those early days Signworld has evolved into a group company with many divisions specialising in Signage, Maintenance, Exhibitions & Displays, Commercial Fleet markings, Graphic Design, Website Development and Web Management.

Signworld operate from the Signworld Group HQ, a modern 13,500 sq ft facility in Broughton located on the busy main arterial route into Chester City Centre. Their new premises together with additional investments in technology has further strengthened its position in the market place and are now widely considered by procurement professionals as the company to work with on small, medium and larger projects requiring the skills of a competent production company. Signworld have continued with their commitment to invest in the most up-to-date digital printing, machining, fabrication and finishing equipment together with a structured & rigorous training programme for our staff who are key to our future development & future prosperity.

Over three years ago, the Moorland Spirit Company set out to make a gin for ginidealists. From their individual perspectives - a chef, a mixologist, a drinks developer and juniper-obsessed countryman – their aim was to re-examine every stage of the ginmaking process from juniper bush to bottle. In the juniper-dotted hills at Hepple in Northumberland they developed a revolutionary method that reveals more complete, delicate flavours in the gin, than is possible with conventional methods alone. It is intricate, lengthy work - it takes five times longer to make Hepple gin than conventional methods- but is worth it. Delicious with tonic and sensational in a martini, Hepple Gin tastes as fresh as the north wind, and as invigorating as a naked dip in a hilltop pool.

'The notion of what makes a great gin lies at the core of every decision we have made at Hepple. We knew that juniper would be at the heart but only by combining both the ripe and young green stages of the berry can we reveal the full breadth of its life and flavour. Woven into this is an array of botanicals that are as lively in the bottle as they are side by side in the northerly wind. Throughout our experimentation it was imperative that we remain faithful to the extraordinary brightness of each ingredient to make this most flavourful gin.'
VALENTINE WARNER – CO-CREATOR OF HEPPLE GIN

ASH Waste Services is a leading waste and resource management company perfectly situated to service the North and North-Wales with facilities in both England and Wales. With over 25 years of operating experience, their expertise in handling waste enables them to deliver a sustainable waste management solution tailored to the needs of your business, whatever the size. Our aim at The Good Life Experience is to achieve 100% diversion from landfill with our festival waste. For this reason we’ve partnered with the Ash Group, who employ the best technology for a 5 stage recycling process.

The Simple Things is a monthly independent magazine, all about taking time to live well. It celebrates slowing down, enjoying what you have, making the most of where you live, enjoying the company of friends and family, and feeding them well. It's about growing some of your own vegetables, visiting local markets, rummaging for vintage finds, and decorating your home with the plunder. It's being outdoors and enjoing the satisfaction that comes with a job well done. For The Simple Things, the small things they celebrate will make a difference in the long run – whether that’s making, upcycling, growing, cooking, escaping or relaxing.

Halen Môn is based in an unique landscape in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Positioned just 75 yards from the sea, its ‘salt cote’ (salt factory) and visitor centre has views of Snowdonia, Carmarthen Castle and the Menai Strait, and echoes to the sound of curlews and oystercatchers.

Aber Falls is committed to quality and a premium taste, and want to be recognised and respected for the calibre of their product and what it stands for. Their team is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about whisky, and all work with the same goal in mind – to create the best whiskies and spirits using the finest ingredients sourced from Wales.

Kansas Smitty’s has become a name synonymous with good music, good drinks and real people, and this year we welcome both the bar and Kansas Smitty’s House Band to TGLE. Look out for the neon sign, and once in you can look forward to a great band on stage and the very best juleps behind the bar.

This year we’ve teamed up with WaterAid to provide the best festival loos you’re likely to come across. Spend a penny at the Good Loos and help bring decent loos and good hygiene to communities that need it most. Suggested donations are £2 per visit. Find them by the entrance to Campsite B (The Castle Campsite).

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known in English as Doctors Without Borders, is an international humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation of French origin best known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. In 2015, over 30,000 personnel—mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers and administrators—provided medical aid in over 70 countries. The vast majority of staff are volunteers.